


expectancy

by mayachain



Series: Valentines2020 [7]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Angst, Book: The Warrior's Apprentice, Cordelia vs. Barrayar, Gen, Miles' pending death sentence, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25423678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: Cordelia, if her son dies.
Relationships: Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan & Miles Vorkosigan, Gregor Vorbarra & Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan
Series: Valentines2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627531
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	expectancy

If her son dies, Cordelia vows to herself, she will quietly kill everyone that murdered him. 

...Not Gregor, never Gregor, who is almost as much her boy as Miles is. But everyone else who nudged him to deliver the sentence. Everyone who whispered lies into his imperial ear.

Cordelia is no longer thirty-five. She won’t go around chopping heads off. However: Famous opera aside, she has been living as Lady Vorkosigan for years, in the shadow of Aral; enemies will underestimate her. Without Simon at the helm, _ImpSec_ will underestimate her. Even Gregor, whose desperate love she never doubts for even a second as the hours tick by, will underestimate her.

It might not come to that. It _cannot_ come to that. She’d almost lost him before he’d ever been born, her only son. She’d almost lost him again and again in his quest to become his own person. This – she has to believe that Miles’ life cannot end like this, that _something_ will happen to persuade Gregor to spurn the charge of treason. There has to be hope.

Come to think of it, where is Alys’ son?

Yet while she does her very best to remain optimistic, Cordelia finds she cannot bear to look at Aral. Her husband is ready to beg for Miles’ life, she knows, but in all the years he spent in power he did nothing – could do nothing – to change this planets’ barbaric laws. 

She cannot bear to reach out to her mother, who would only rage that her family should have left for Beta long ago. 

If Miles dies, Cordelia will forgive Gregor – somehow – but for no one else will she find a sliver of forgiveness. Not for herself, not for Aral, not for Alys, Simon, young Henri.

If her son dies of thirst and exposure in a godforsaken square, no part of Cordelia, nor her self-restraint, will belong to Barrayar any more.

.


End file.
